April is Outta Here

I found some more pictures from Debbie, Salih, Jennifer, and Fu's trip.

hey, i mean, the guy was sleepy, what can i say? hahah

they made these picture toy things at the top of the shinjuku metropolitan building.

Nonbei yokocho, the small alleys with the micro bars in shibuya.

Tight, one of the bars there, capacity is 18 the bartender says, currently i think there are 12 people in here. the guy above fu is chilling on the stairs.

you cant really see that well but now i am chillin' on the stairs. its not really safe i guess but that is how you get your 18 people in there.

one of those wooden things that you write your wishes on the back of at shrines, this fox one was so cool so i took it home.

i made it to level 2 japanese class and have some new classmates but mostly the same awesome ones from last time.

next to my house under the bridge there are all these recreation spaces and these bartender guys are always practicing their bottle flipping and Tom Cruises.

crows are super smart.

girls are such animals. get a lil alchohol in em and all they want to do is arm wrestle each other.

i try to walk home different ways, there are lots of nice neighborhoods inbtwn my house and shibuya/ebisu

grossness, i didnt try it yet but i will and will report. probably the report will say that its awesome somehow.

brush art sign in omotesando, i wanna do that too

a better koinobori display hopefully coming after a trip i make on thursday. this is at tokyo tower tonight, the halfway point of my run.

More Fu

Fu continues his Journey in Tokyo after Debbie, Salih, and Jennifer leave. Lots of fun was had.

spring and warm weather are here! That means lots of this everywhere!

One of the "Black Impact" Cigarette promo girls.

horse racing video game in the arcade

we were walking along with "O-somu" (Awesome), who is Kyo chan's friend and he saw some of his buddies near Shibuya crossing. the guy in the orange jacket kept bowing to Fu progressively lower and lower until he was laying down flat on his stomach on the ground and making a bowing motion. what a joker.

inside Atom in shibuya.

after yet another night at a club, this time it was club "Harlem" it had nothing to do with Harlem thank god. I mean it was hip hop music and a super sh!tty reggae DJ crew that would play the track, stop it and say some crap, play the track and so on for hours so you couldnt even dance. Here is fu looking super happy with Kyo chan, which he should be.

Fu, a very drunk "Johnson" again, and Kyochan

happy trails fu!

next day on the way to one last hanami session Shintaro and Misa spotted me on my bike.

the trees were shedding their petals at a rapid pace so it was snowing petals. It was pretty nice.

shibuya crossing from the window of starbucks

shibuya crossing from the window of starbucks

finally went to tsukiji fish market. if you come here make sure you don't wear shoes with holes in the bottom or you will get serious fish foot. and you probably should'nt wear anything nice because there is a good chance you will get some kind of fishy something on you.

Tsukiji fish market is a crazy busy place. there are scooters, vehicles, and these weird looking transport things zooming around everywhere. you definitely need to keep your wits about you

we ate at Daiwa sushi at 6:30am. they say its the number 2 best place in Tsukiiji. We didnt have to wait an hour like i read online, we didnt have to wait at all. we saw people waiting next door which might have been the #1 place. Anyway it was the best sushi i've ever had. the whole point is to get there early so everything is as fresh as possible. The recommended set was 3500 yen ($38). it included the best uni (sea urchin) that i have ever had.

the tuna auction is closed to the public for a while because foreigners were coming drunk and actin' a fool. you can still see the giant tunas laying around after the auction at the different stalls that bought them.

huge tuna knives.

going at one with an ax.

going at one with a band saw.

huge slabs of tuna

im pretty sure i got a nice swipe of this blood fish water on the back of my pants probably when a knife was being shaken off.

young guy learning the trade.

as per Fu's final request we ate at this place in the Lumine 2 building in shinjuku i think it was. It has an "American West" theme. so that means the menu had to be physically huge and there was lots of cheesy western themed stuff. There were no foreigners in there.

So there is the trip all wrapped up. Hope you had a good time Fu. It's Bob up next in June for a 3 week stay. Get ready bob!

D,S,J,F Tokyo 2010 Days 7 and 8

across the street from my door.

that good ol' sushi place in shibuya. they loved it.

fugu, pufferfish

this crow was crazy or something. it just sat there the whole time kind of weezing and people would walk up the stairs right next to it and it wouldnt fly away

inokashira park in kichijoji. on the other side of this is the ghibli museum, its a nice walk.

discovered this shrine that has the coolest color scheme i have ever seen.

tiny tiny jizo.

whats the deal with this shrine? i've never seen this kind of style.

watch out sleepy eyed, big lipped panda man, your hand and ear are stuck in the door!

the wall of Yabaton (the miso katsu restaurant from Nagoya) in ginza has a model map of the area.

we gotta come here bob, fried pork cutlets with miso sauce abound.

kabuki za theatre. it only had 24 days of existance left as of that day.

went to this place under the tracks near yurakacho

there were pictures of various cats using their toilet!

boat ride up the sumida river. it was 740 yen and took 45 minutes. its a cool way to see that side of town.

futuristic boat.

the golden fart at asakusa, which is where you get off.

ended their trip on a high note at the micro bars in nonbei yokocho in shibuya. we went to "Tight". and yes the space is tight. there is really only room for like 6 people but the bartender said that capacity is 18 people. that means if people are on the stairs too. and at one point there were 12 people in there and 3 of them did have to chill on the stairs. what gives? they must really love that place. and they should it was cool, we met cool people

they spotted this bottle with a snake in it so we all had some of this snake sake.

this guy was pretty crazy, they had fun with him. It was a jolly happy time at this place. These photos dont do justice to how small the place is.

ramen later. this is what you're faced with at most of these machines were you put in money and get a ticket for your order to hand in. there is usually no english so its pretty difficult if you cant read anything.

I don't know how they do this magical soft boiling of the eggs in Japan but its awesome.

So Debbie, Salih, and Jennifer went back to NY the next day and Fu stayed for some more days for some long nights of debauchery. That post is coming next. We jammed a lot into their 8 days. Hong Kong maybe? Happy Trails buddies.